I just wanted to leave a quick message to comment on the recent update to the review system here on Steam.
First of all, I want to say that I respect and admire Valve's attempts to make this the best possible storefront for desktop gaming. Developing a fair system that is free of spam and abuse is no small task.
The change has had some effects on Adventure Lamp, and so I thought it worth telling AL's story to give it some context. I made Adventure Lamp because I love to make things. I wanted to make something joyful and unique and I think I hit that mark dead center. Selling things on the internet is very hard and there are a zillion reasons why things succeed or fail here.
I can't pretend to know why, but on launch day I received just three reviews from Steam purchasers. Two of those three are negative, for reasons I respect. I worked hard the following months to get the game in front of more people. I also sell the game on itch.io, and many of those players responded to the Steam launch by writing a review here. I have also had a number of youtubers, streamers, and journalists request a key for the game via my website. I have never asked for positive reviews, nor do I want fake ones. Many of the youtubers, streamers, and journalists thoughtfully gave their time in the form of a written review. Slowly, the positive reviews trickled in, and brought the rating score up to a respectable Positive. The recent change to the review system hid that progress, leaving only the first three reviews.
Today the reviews are pretty meager. This is fine, and does not change how I feel or the work I am putting in to a pretty hefty content update. I think given time Adventure Lamp will meet its core players and the rating will reflect that.
And, hey, if not I will still be here making joyful and unique things anyway.
TL;DR: Rating systems are icky, videogames rock, and you rock too.
Ryan
Dev Diary -- Level Editor Beginnings
This weekend I started working on a level editor. This is a major structural move but I think it will pay off in a big way once it's done.
After a couple days of effort I have very simple levels saving and loading, the ability to switch between edit and play modes, and much of the boring but important system work complete. This is the proof of concept I needed to be able to move forward, which is really exciting!
I am so thrilled about this. My favorite feature is being able to immediately hop around after placing blocks. I can't wait to see what other people make with it.
Leave a comment if you're interested--beta testers are going to be really important.
Ryan
Memory Leak Improvements
Hi everyone! Just checking in about the latest update. Since launch, many people have reported lag issues that creep in over time. The game usually starts to stutter 40-60 minutes into play, eventually freezing and sometimes crashing.
This update should improve or fix the situation, but I will need feedback to know whether or not it was successful. In my testing, the memory leak appears to be much smaller, or possibly resolved. I just need to know if it has improved, worsened, or remains unchanged.
Thanks for reading, playing, and everything else.
Ryan
Play Button Fix
After a long day of bug hunting, the play button problem appears to be fixed. If it persists in any way please let me know.
Performance Fix
Hello everyone!
I've just pushed an update which should take care of the lag some people were experiencing (especially while running recording software). It seems to have dropped from 800mb of memory use (holy cow) to 350mb.
While that should take care of the problem, I can only test it on what computers I have access to. If there continue to be issues please let me know in the game community forums.
